Some local hospitals not quickly screening all newborns

Unless you’re a parent or medical professional, you may not know that all newborn babies in Washington and across the country have their blood screened to detect rare diseases.

The timing of blood screenings is critically important because newborns afflicted with certain rare disorders can fall sick within just a few days of leaving the hospital. Early detection through these screenings saves 12,000 babies each year in the United States from death or irreversible harm.

Unfortunately, nine hospitals in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties did not screen all newborn babies for dangerous genetic disorders within an acceptable window of time, according to a new investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Federal guidelines recommend that blood samples from newborns reach the lab within three days. Five days or longer is considered dangerous by many lab directors, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Twelve hospitals in our area had perfect records in 2012 — 100 percent of samples reached the lab before five days. But, as indicated in the table below, for nine local hospitals a fraction of newborn blood samples took five or more days to reach the lab.

At Highline Medical Center* in Burien, nearly 6 percent of screenings failed to arrive at the lab in this critical period of time. At Swedish Medical Center on First Hill in Seattle, where more babies are born than any other hospital in Washington, 214 blood samples took at least five days to be tested in 2012. At Evergreen Health in Kirkland, it was 103 samples.

Screening delays can happen because a blood sample might be misplaced at the hospital or not timely handled. Or the lab performing the screening might be closed over the weekend, adding potentially harmful delay.

Two hospitals in Spokane had the poorest record for screenings in 2012: Valley Hospital and Medical Center (28.35 percent) and Deaconess Medical Center (17.91 percent).

Overall, we do pretty well in Washington, where newborns are tested for 28 different conditions. Statewide, 2,076 samples, or 1.93 percent, took five or more days to reach a lab.

Among the 26 states that provided screening data to the Journal Sentinel, Iowa had the lowest rate of delayed screenings (.18 percent) and Arizona had the highest (16.65 percent).

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Facility

City

2012 samples

5+ days

%

Highline Medical Center*

Burien

1572

92

5.85

Swedish Medical Center on First Hill

Seattle

8682

214

2.46

Evergreen Health

Kirkland

4926

103

2.09

Multicare-Good Samaritan Hospital

Puyallup

2330

28

1.20

Auburn Medical Center-Multicare

Auburn

501

5

1.00

Valley Medical Center

Renton

4638

35

0.75

Providence-Everett Medical Center

Everett

4797

29

0.60

Swedish Hospital-Issaquah

Issaquah

1313

5

0.38

Madigan Army Medical Center

Tacoma

5285

7

0.13

Overlake Hospital Medical Center

Bellevue

4244

0

0

Group Health Cooperative-Seattle

Seattle

1882

0

0

Seattle Children’s Hospital

Seattle

609

0

0

St. Elizabeth Hospital

Enumclaw

444

0

0

St. Francis Hospital

Federal Way

1201

0

0

St. Joseph Hospital

Tacoma

5540

0

0

Swedish Hospital-Ballard

Seattle

1024

0

0

Swedish Hospital-Edmonds

Edmonds

1666

0

0

Tacoma General Hospital

Tacoma

3771

0

0

U.W. Medicine-Northwest Hospital

Seattle

1921

0

0

University of Washington Medical Center

Seattle

2383

0

0

Cascade Valley Hospital

Arlington

401

0

0

Valley General Hospital

Monroe

N/A

N/A

N/A

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

——

*Update: I received a statement regarding this data from a representative of Highline Medical Center; it can be read by clicking here.

About this blog

Gene has been a news librarian at The Seattle Times since 2002. He is a native of New Jersey, and earned a Master’s Degree in Library Science from Rutgers University. Before coming to The Times, he worked for the Orange County Register and the Baltimore Sun.